The V.P. debate and the agenda for health reform
Posted by Don McCanne MD on Friday, Oct 3, 2008This entry is from Dr. McCanne's Quote of the Day, a daily health policy update on the single-payer health care reform movement. The QotD is archived on PNHP's website.
The Vice-Presidential Debate
October 2, 2008
Sarah Palin: (in her closing statement) It was Ronald Reagan who said that freedom is always just one generation away from extinction. We don’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream; we have to fight for it and protect it, and then hand it to them so that they shall do the same, or we’re going to find ourselves SPENDING OUR SUNSET YEARS TELLING OUR CHILDREN AND OUR CHILDREN’S CHILDREN ABOUT A TIME IN AMERICA, BACK IN THE DAY, WHEN MEN AND WOMEN WERE FREE.
Video and transcript:
http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/president/debates/vice-presidential-debate.html
And…
Ronald Reagan Speaks Out Against Socialized Medicine LP recording, 1961, Woman’s Auxiliary of the AMA
Ronald Reagan: Write those letters now. Call your friends, and tell them to write them. If you don’t, this program (King-Anderson version of Medicare) I promise you will pass just as surely as the sun will come up tomorrow. And behind it will come other federal programs that will invade every area of freedom as we have known it in this country, until, one day, as Norman Thomas said, we will awake to find that we have socialism. And if you don’t do this, and if I don’t do it, one of these days, you and I are going to SPEND OUR SUNSET YEARS TELLING OUR CHILDREN, AND OUR CHILDREN’S CHILDREN, WHAT IT WAS ONCE LIKE IN AMERICA WHEN MEN WERE FREE.
WHAM campaign (Women Help American Medicine):
http://www.larrydewitt.net/Essays/Reagan.htmmp3 audio of “Ronald Reagan Speaks Out Against Socialized Medicine”
http://blogfiles.wfmu.org/KF/reagan1.mp3
If you really care about the future of our health care system, you should give some thought to the motivation of the McCain/Palin camp in selecting this closing statement for her debate.
Obama and Biden support a greater government role in ensuring that more individuals have affordable health care and health care coverage. McCain and Palin support freedom and individual responsibility in accessing health care and health care coverage. If you need health care, well designed public policies can work for all of us, but private policies can work only for those with the financial means to obtain adequate coverage.
For her closing statement, the McCain/Palin advisors selected the most notorious attack on a government role in health care, deceptively cloaked in the rhetoric of freedom. That should tell you something.
Subscribe to our blog's RSS feed.
About this blog
Physicians for a National Health Program's blog serves to facilitate communication among physicians and the public. The views presented on this blog are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily represent the views of PNHP.
News from activists
PNHP Chapters and Activists are invited to post news of their recent speaking engagements, events, Congressional visits and other activities on PNHP’s blog in the “News from Activists” section.
Remembering Nick Skala
We at PNHP are terribly saddened to report the sudden and unexpected loss of our senior research associate, Nicholas Skala, who died on August, 8th, 2009. Nick was one of our nation’s most gifted and dedicated advocates for single-payer national health insurance. We invite you to share your memories and experiences of Nick while we redouble our efforts to bring about his vision.
Leave a reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.